Execution Wednesday for killer of Port Arthur firefighter

By Sarah Moore

Published 10:57 am, Monday, June 10, 2013

Photo: Randy Edwards

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From left to right, Willie Ryman Jr. and Barry Ryman look over the headstone of Willie Ryman III in the Greenlawn Memorial Park in Groves on Friday, June 7, 2013.
Photo taken:
Randy Edwards/The Enterprise

From left to right, Willie Ryman Jr. and Barry Ryman look over the headstone of Willie Ryman III in the Greenlawn Memorial Park in Groves on Friday, June 7, 2013.
Photo taken:
Randy Edwards/The Enterprise

From left to right, Willie Ryman Jr. and Barry Ryman look over the headstone of Willie Ryman III in the Greenlawn Memorial Park in Groves on Friday, June 7, 2013.
Photo taken:
Randy Edwards/The Enterprise

From left to right, Willie Ryman Jr. and Barry Ryman look over the headstone of Willie Ryman III in the Greenlawn Memorial Park in Groves on Friday, June 7, 2013.
Photo taken:
Randy Edwards/The Enterprise

Photo: Randy Edwards

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Willie Ryman III was 38 when he was shot to death by Elroy Chester on Feb. 6, 1998. Ryman had gone to his sister's Pear Ridge home that night to check on his neices, whom Chester had tied up, duct taped and raped at gunpoint. Chester is set for execution Wednesday for the capital murder of Ryman. less

Willie Ryman III was 38 when he was shot to death by Elroy Chester on Feb. 6, 1998. Ryman had gone to his sister's Pear Ridge home that night to check on his neices, whom Chester had tied up, duct taped and ... more

Photo: Courtesy Photo

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Cheryl DeLeon, 40, was shot to death Nov. 20, 1997. Elroy Chester, who had been coworker at Luby's, robbed DeLeon, shooting her in the throat.

Cheryl DeLeon, 40, was shot to death Nov. 20, 1997. Elroy Chester, who had been coworker at Luby's, robbed DeLeon, shooting her in the throat.

Photo: Courtesy Photo

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Execution Wednesday for killer of Port Arthur firefighter

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The day a jury sent Elroy Chester to death row for the capital murder of Port Arthur firefighter Willie "Billy" Ryman III, Ryman's mother said the verdict gave her family some relief.

"It gets this part out of the way," she said on Aug. 24, 1998. "And then we've got to go on and live with it for the rest of our lives."

But barring any last-minute stays of execution, Chester will die by lethal injection Wednesday in the death chamber in Huntsville.

Surviving members of Ryman's family will be there to witness the death of the man who took their son, brother, uncle and father

The terrible night of Feb. 6, 1998, is engraved on their memories.

Erin and Claire DeLeon were raped by Chester before their uncle arrived to check on them.

Erin was home alone with her infant son when Chester slipped into the house through the front door, which she'd left unlocked for her sisters, who were both out.

"I bet you wish you'd locked the door," he said to her, according to her testimony at his trial.

Chester grabbed her ponytail and put a gun to her head as he ransacked the house for jewelry.

Claire and her boyfriend arrived soon afterward, and Chester forced them to undress before duct taping the girls' eyes and the head, hands and feet of the boyfriend, who was then put in another room.

Chester raped the sisters, threatening to kill them.

In the midst of this, they heard a vehicle drive up to the house and someone come inside.

Chester pulled up his pants and hid in the kitchen, according to his statement to police.

The sisters heard a gunshot, and a body hit the kitchen floor.

It was their Uncle Billy.

The family feels certain that if Ryman hadn't arrived, Chester would have killed the girls and Erin's boyfriend to get rid of any witnesses.

But as it happened, Billy Ryman had left his motor running, which worried Chester. Claire suggested he'd better go check on it, which he did.

The girls quickly rushed to lock the door and got a gun their grandpa had given them.

After shooting out the windows of Billy Ryman's truck (missing Billy's girlfriend inside) Chester returned to the house, but one of the sisters fired the handgun, and he ran for his bicycle, got on it and rode away.

Erin DeLeon, now 32, said that though she isn't always thinking about it, the memory of that night is always on her mind.

She's an overprotective mother to her 16-year-old son - the baby who was in the house that night - and she compulsively locks doors behind her when she enters her home.

"Oh my God, will there be somebody in my house?" she worries upon arrival.

For a long time she was angry about all the things that changed in her life: the loss of Uncle Billy, unkind whispers and taunts from students at Thomas Jefferson High that forced her to leave home and complete high school in Missouri.

Billy Ryman's son was 16 at the time and didn't take the loss well, refusing to talk about it, and refusing for years to enter the house where his father died. He went into a downward spiral that ended with his death from a heroin overdose at age 26, said Billy's brother, Barry Ryman.

In Billy Ryman's family, he was the peacemaker - the one to make you laugh and calm you down.

His mother never really got over her oldest son's death, Barry Ryman said.

"Our family was shattered," Barry said in an email. "Billy's key dynamic (accepting everyone and helping anyone) was gone and no one could replace it... How do you move forward? There's this big void I feel inside that he once filled and my heart has been broken forever."

But Ryman's wasn't the only family devastated by Chester's crime rampage that terrorized Port Arthur in 1997-1998.

A jail officer testified that Chester said he regretted raping such a young child.

"I'm sorry for that 10-year-old. I didn't know she was 10."

If he'd known her age, he said, he would have "gotten her momma, then."

Chester had worked with Cheryl DeLeon (no relation to Erin and Claire) at Luby's before victimizing her in a robbery.

Cheryl DeLeon had just arrived at her aunt's home, where she was staying while her grandmother was in the hospital, when Chester came up behind her on the steps.

After her aunt, who wasn't home at the time, couldn't get in touch with her, she sent someone to check.

Cheryl was found dead of a gunshot wound to the throat.

Her sister, Lina Ihle, will be another witness at Chester's execution.

"I don't mean no harm to anybody in this world," Ihle said in a telephone interview. "Until you've been put in this situation, you don't know how it feels. It's devastating. It's horrible. It's something you never forget. Any time we're together, we all talk about it."

Ihle said her sister was "real sweet, real mild and meek."

The oldest of six children, five girls and one boy, Cheryl DeLeon was responsible and caring.

"She stayed at home a lot and worked - that was her life, work and family," Ihle said.

Ihle fervently hopes Chester is not granted a last-minute stay.

"He killed my sister. He has no remorse for what he did," she said.

Chester refused one request for an interview, consenting to a second request, but changing his mind the day it was scheduled.

At his August 1998 capital murder trial, a jury deliberated just 12 minutes before giving him death - a record that still stands today.

The quick death sentence was attributed to both the brutality of his crimes and his bizarre and threatening testimony.

Chester, who was separated from the seating area of the courtroom with a large sheet of Plexiglas, also wore a stun belt.

If given the death penalty, Chester vowed to order his "homies" to kill a Port Arthur cop who busted him for burglary in 1988.

"I want this cop to die," he told the court.

Chester testified committing crimes was "a whole lot of fun" and said he was "trippin" the night he killed Billy Ryman.

During cross examination, prosecutor Paul McWilliams urged Chester to provide the names of the "home-boys" Chester said were with him during some of the slayings, so more people wouldn't die.